30. Cale
30
CALE
A ll the required words have been spoken by the priest.
Forgive us our trespasses and forgive those who trespass against us and deliver us from evil.
Good words.
No doubt they give some of the mourners comfort. Dutifully, I make the sign of the cross with everyone else even though I’ve never set foot inside a church of my own free will. Maybe I should. I’d monopolize the confessional booth for a week.
I’ve attended too many funerals and hated every one of them. The funeral of Vinny Tello is the same. However, today there’s the added burden of guilt. It’s a crushing burden that far surpasses the weight of the casket on my shoulder as I helped carry my old friend to his final resting place.
Worst of all, beneath the guilt is deep relief. That could have easily been me in the casket. If my position and Vinny’s had been swapped then I would have taken two to the chest and one to the throat.
Lights out. The end. No chance for redemption. No chance to hold Sadie in my arms again.
A light drizzle falls from the sky as the mourners begin to filter away from the gravesite. Vinny’s wife Kiki has loudly sobbed the whole time. She’s still wailing. When Aunt Donna tries to steer her away, Kiki breaks free and drops to her knees to lay her hand on the mahogany casket containing her dead husband.
Richie paid for that casket. He paid for the whole funeral. How generous of him.
My uncle stands ten yards away, talking to Franco and Brisetti as one of his bodyguards holds a black umbrella over his head. He sees me staring, pauses for a heartbeat, then resumes talking.
I was expected to stand with him during the funeral. Too bad I’m all out of fucks to give when it comes to Richie’s expectations.
My aunt and some of the other women manage to pull Kiki to her feet and guide her away from the gravesite. I’m so busy watching Vinny’s wife in her moment of grief that I don’t even see Luca until he’s right next to me. His plane landed yesterday but we haven’t had much of a chance to talk. Luca stood at Richie’s side during the funeral.
Luca gives my shoulder a comforting pat. “Are you okay?”
“Sure.” The rain begins to pelt down a little harder. “I’m the one who’s still breathing.”
Luca stuffs his hands in his pockets and glances at Richie. “There’s nothing you could have done, Cale. It wasn’t your fault.”
“What the hell do you know about it?” The question sounds harsher than it should. The details of what happened inside a seedy New Jersey apartment building aren’t for Luca’s ears.
My brother meets my eye and doesn’t blink. Right now he looks the part of a serious man as opposed to my innocent kid brother. Can’t say I’m a fan of the change.
“I was in the room when Richie was talking to Franco,” Luca says. “Uncle Vinny is a big loss. We all feel it. Richie’s really busted up. He and Vinny must go back twenty years.”
“More like thirty,” I say, still not pleased that Richie kept Luca around while discussing business.
For two weeks me and Vinny and a couple of the boys crisscrossed the eastern seaboard chasing after the fucker who had the poor judgment to kill an important Amato associate. I never even asked for particulars on the original dispute. It didn’t matter. I was tasked to do a job and I was going to do a job. We were hot on his trail and had good intel that he was holed up in Newark. When we went in for the final kill we got blindsided. Vinny was hit. I took out the target and one of his minions. The boys who were my backup took out the other two. Vinny Tello wheezed out his last breath in my arms. He had no final words because of the bullet in his throat. He bled out a river, shuddered and then it was just all over.
But that’s not a story I was planning to share with my brother.
Richie is now talking to Albie Barone. Ordinarily, Vinny Tello’s funeral wouldn’t have attracted a top family boss. But I guess Barone wanted to make the gesture of respect to Richie now that they’re all tight and shit.
“I thought Sadie would be here,” Luca says. “Why didn’t you fly her out for the funeral?”
“Because this has nothing to do with her and I don’t want her getting sucked into this shit.”
Luca gives me a long, searching look. He slowly nods, as if he’s just received an answer he’d been waiting for. “Yeah, that’s exactly what I figured.” He sighs. “Are you heading over to the house now?”
The prospect of mingling with a gaggle of mobsters at a post-funeral gathering just doesn’t appeal to me. Sure, Richie will be pissed but who cares?
“I can’t. I’ve got somewhere to be.”
Luca’s forehead creases with concern. “You should go to the house, Cale.”
“I said I can’t. I’ll come by later. When are you flying out?”
Luca looks over his shoulder at Richie, who is now watching us intently. “Not sure,” he says. “But you’ll be at Richie’s later?”
“You have my word.”
Luca extends a fist for a bump and I meet him with my own fist. “Later, man.”
He cracks a grin and finally looks like the old Luca again. Then he strolls across the wet grass to join Richie’s group. Albie Barone shakes his hand. Richie pulls him under the umbrella. As I’m watching, they all start walking in the opposite direction toward the parking lot.
There are not many people left here now. The two men who pass me by offer curt nods and keep moving. I suppose they don’t like me much. After all, I’m the guy who told them to eat dinner under the table like dogs.
“Hey.” I call to them.
They both turn around at once. Their eyes are red and immediately their expressions become nervous. Vinny’s two nephews are little more than kids. Just a few years out of high school.
“Get out while you can,” I tell them.
It’s good advice. But I don’t wait around for them to awkwardly stammer out a response. I just hope they listen.
The rain continues to pelt my head on the walk to my car. It makes the air humid and unpleasant. Once I’m inside the car I pull out my phone. The desire to hear Sadie’s voice is overwhelming. It’s also nothing new.
My head hasn’t been focused since I left her at the gate of Bright Hearts Ranch. I’m pretty sure the sharp edge I’ve lost is one of the reasons why Vinny Tello is dead. The cold-hearted badass mafia henchman that had prevailed for so long is gone. Replaced by a guy who left his heart behind in Colorado and discovered he’s nothing without it.
It’s true. I’m nothing without her .
The last time I heard from Sadie was five days ago. She sent a photo of Bright Hearts. Judging by the vantage point, she was standing at the front door of the house as she pointed the camera toward the yard. That was the day Vinny died. Since then I still haven’t found the words to explain any of this.
There are a lot of things I need to say to Sadie. But for now I swipe away from her photo and tap out a text to a different recipient to say that I’m on my way.
In a weird twist, Baylor has been trying to get in touch with me for weeks. The only reason why I’ve answered him today is because whatever he has to say might have something to do with Sadie. During Vinny’s funeral service I texted him to say I was in town and available to meet this afternoon. Now here I am, on my way to a dump of a diner fifteen minutes away. Frankly, I’m surprised Baylor Wingate is willing to be seen with me in public.
When I arrive at the diner, Baylor is already sitting at a table by the window. He doesn’t see me right away so I have time to observe the way he’s crushing a napkin in his right hand and jiggling his leg. He’s nervous. Or else he needs to take a piss. He kind of looks like shit.
I clear my throat to announce my arrival.
He quits shaking his leg and throws me an anxious smile. “Looks like you got caught in the rain.”
“Nope, I ran through some sprinklers.”
He raises an eyebrow over my suit. “Did you just come from a funeral or something?”
“Yes.”
“Shit.” He blinks. “Who died?”
I shake out a cloth napkin and ask a passing waiter for coffee before answering Baylor’s question. “His name was Vinny Tello and you didn’t know him so let’s leave it alone.”
Baylor leans back in his chair. “Not the guy you called Uncle Vinny? You used to talk about him.”
I suppose I did. I’m just surprised that Baylor remembers. I would have thought such information would have gotten crowded out by political campaigns and crap.
The coffee arrives and I tell the waiter to leave the whole pitcher at the table. Baylor orders a pastrami on rye sandwich but the idea of food makes my stomach lurch. I gulp back a cup of caffeine in the hopes it will clear the haze from my brain.
“I guess you heard about everything,” Baylor says.
He’s playing with his fork now. His cheeks show patches of peach fuzz beard growth. His clothes look as if they’ve been worn for several days straight. There’s even a ketchup stain on his shirt.
On someone else these oversights might be meaningless. But Baylor has morphed into an uptight plucked and pressed kind of guy ever since he went corporate.
I set the coffee mug down and fill it to the top again. “What should I have heard?”
He glances around like he’s fearful of being recognized. “There were some videos leaked. They went internet viral. A threesome in my office after dark. The two women are on the Dukes staff. The campaign is finished. And my father suspended me from the office for three months. He says I can expect a hell of a demotion when I return. Asher Wingate has no problem with cheating and lying. To my father, the worst sin is getting caught and I got caught. That’s what he can’t forgive. You really didn’t hear about any of this?”
“Nope.” I’ve been too preoccupied to track any news of Baylor’s scandals. Another time I probably would have laughed over his downfall. I have no urge to laugh right now.
“And Talia left me,” Baylor says. At this point he’s practically sinking into the cheap vinyl seat. “The divorce papers have already been served.”
“I’m really sorry to hear that,” I tell him.
I still hold some grudges against Baylor Wingate. Yet there’s now joy in kicking a man when he’s down. Besides, he’s Sadie’s brother. If she was here, she’d show him compassion.
Baylor heaves a sigh and gazes at me with a troubled frown. I toss back more coffee and wait for him to sort out whatever is on his mind.
He drums his fingers on the table and finally speaks. “I’m the one who’s sorry, Cale. We didn’t just drift apart. I let bad opinions get in the way of our friendship. If it matters at all, I never found a better friend than you. And I don’t expect your forgiveness. I just wanted you to know that I’m aware it was all my fault.”
He’s being so earnest for once. I don’t know whether to believe what he’s saying but maybe for now I can give him the benefit of the doubt.
“It doesn’t matter anymore,” I say. “Nothing you can do about the past.”
His mouth stretches into a grim smile. “Yeah, I’ll just add it to my long string of failures.” The smile falls. “Recently I’ve had a lot of unwanted time to think and I keep coming to the same conclusion. What bothers me more than anything is how I’ve failed Sadie. When my little sister needed me, I was too much of a coward to stand up for her.”
“Yeah, you were. Luckily, Sadie is strong enough to stand on her own.”
“She hates me, doesn’t she?”
“Sadie doesn’t hate anyone.”
His pastrami arrives. He shows no interest in his plate. He stares out the window instead.
The break in the conversation gives me a minute to reflect on a few things.
I’ve told lies to everyone.
My brother. Richie. Baylor. Vinny. Fucking everyone.
Except her.
It’s my single point of pride. I don’t lie to Sadie. It’s only with her that I’m better than I am. The days don’t seem to make any sense without her in them. Without Sadie, I’m just going through the motions. An imitation of living.
It all adds up to an inescapable fact.
The man who cynically proposed a marriage arrangement to a girl he barely knew on a cold Christmas Eve isn’t here anymore.
He’s been replaced with Sadie’s husband.
Baylor finally turns away from the window and uses the side of his fork to scrape some sauce from the guts of his sandwich. The sight makes me snort with laughter. He looks up in confusion.
“I forgot,” I say.
“You forgot what?”
“You were always the pickiest fucking eater in the world.”
He manages to gurgle a slight laugh. “I guess not everything changes, huh?”
“No, not everything,” I agree.
Now that the ice has been thawed a little, Baylor begins asking shy questions about his sister. Lucky for him he found the one topic I enjoy talking about. When he wants to hear more about the ranch, I show him some of the videos Sadie sent to me. I know she won’t mind.
He’s clearly impressed. And proud of what Sadie has accomplished. Watching those emotions on his face softens my opinion of him quite a bit.
Baylor chews a small bite of his pastrami and regards me thoughtfully. “Can I tell you something?”
“Might as well.”
“It didn’t really hit me until I saw you two together at that shitshow of a wedding. But you really do love her, don’t you, Cale?”
Easiest answer I ever. “Yeah, Bay. I really do love her.”
How could I not love that girl?
Sadie is feisty and sexy and full of surprises. She’s smart and she can be stubborn. She’s generous and funny. She’s everything.
There’s nothing easier than loving her.
Baylor doesn’t seem eager to leave. Neither am I but I did make a promise to Luca. After an hour and a half I need to call it quits.
Despite Baylor’s protests, I toss some cash on the table and stand up. “I’ll see you around, Bay.”
“Wait. Can I ask you for something?”
“Try it. Maybe I’ll say yes.”
“Could you put in a good word for me with Sadie? There’s a lot I need to make up for. But I’d sure like the chance to be her big brother again.”
“I’ll let her know what you said. That’s the best I can do.”
He nods. “Fair enough.”
The rain has stopped and the sun struggles to peek out from the clouds. Once I’m out in the parking lot, I look back at the diner and see Baylor is still sitting at the table by the window. He’s watching me. He waves. I wave back.
We’ll never be the best of friends again. But the next time he calls and asks to meet for lunch I won’t say no.
By the time I get to Richie’s house, the cars belonging to Vinny Tello’s mourners are starting to leave. There are still plenty of familiar faces milling around and I have no desire to stop and chat with any of them.
Brisetti finds me threading my way through what’s left of the funeral crowd and he clamps a hand on my arm. “Richie’s been waiting for you,” he says.
There’s something about the bleak tenor of his voice that raises alarm bells. Brisetti notices when I freeze in my tracks.
He grunts with some amusement. “Don’t be so fucking paranoid. You know shit doesn’t work like that.”
Translation: If Richie wanted you dead then the lights would already have gone out.
Still, I can’t shake the sense of uneasiness as I walk down the hall towards Richie’s office. Like I’ve done thousands of times before, I rap my knuckles on the door.
“It’s me.”
“Come in,” Richie replies.
Richie Amato is seated behind his desk, like always. But he’s not alone. My brother sits in the leather chair on the right, the one that’s usually occupied by me.
Luca doesn’t stand up. He turns and nods his head in greeting.
“Sit down, Carmine,” Richie says, pointing to a plain empty armchair.
Now I understand.
And I wish like hell that I didn’t.